Theatre By the Students, For the Students (April 20-25)

Theatre By the Students, For the Students (April 20-25)

By Courtney Hebert

Every semester, the Queenes Companye offers the Saint Joseph College community a play that is relevant to the student body and displays current issues we face in the world today. In recent semesters we’ve performed plays having to do with capital punishment, war, feminism, family drama, and a variety of other topics. This spring’s production of Masters and Novices: Plays Old and New from Page to Stage features more involvement and creative control by students than ever before.

Under the guidance of Dr. Mark Zelinsky, this week-long festival of one-acts will present 8 student-directed plays, featuring student actors as well as guest artists from outside the school. A by among such beloved playwrights as Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, audiences will also be able to enjoy the world premieres of four original plays written by students from Dr. Zelinsky’s play-writing class last semester. These originals deal with subjects ranging from sexual orientation to satirical portrayals of negative cultural stereotypes, and so much more. These are the plays that will be performed:

Night A

As He Was by Kim Kim’s (SJC grad student) – The main character Chris comes out to his family as transgender on Thanksgiving.

Bittergirl by Lawrence & Moore – Women learn about getting over getting dumped.

Finder’s Keepers by Cori Sheehan (SJC student) – Four easily recognized types argue over money that is not theirs.

A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot by Tennessee Williams – A prophecy by from an unlikely source becomes self-fullfilling.

Night B

Cold Coffee Heart by Ashley Nelson (SJC student) – This play deals with isolation and the misperceptions people have of one another.

A Late Lunch by G.L. Horton – Two old friends try to find common ground in spite of the different directions their lives have taken since one of them became a mother.

Leaves of the Fall by Jill M. Scott (SJC alum) – Ginny’s  wife, ex-husband, and daughter deal with unresolved issues at Ginny’s funeral, as she watches unseen.

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee – A dark comedy that explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world.

Week night performances begin at 7:30 pm the week of April 20, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for the general public. Each night will feature 4 of the total 8 plays, so check with the box office or on posters around campus for which days have which plays. SEE ALL 8 PLAYS AT A SPECIAL PRICE ON SATURDAY, APRIL 25 AT 3PM when we run them back-to-back with complimentary snacks and beverages served at a long intermission.  Tickets for this special Saturday event are $7.50 for SJC students and $15 for all others. The plays are for mature audiences only due to language, sexual behavior, and brief nudity.  All shows will be held in the Bruyette Auditorium.  Please contact the Driscoll Box Office at 860-231-5555 for tickets (which may also be purchased at the door) or for further information about the productions please contact Mark Zelinsky, Director of the Queenes Companye, at 860-231-5252 or mzelinsky@sjc.edu

Yes, You Do Need CHEM 240!

A few weeks ago, I had a former CHEM 240 visit a study group of mine. She looked at my group of students and posed the question,

“Guess when you will use this information you are learning again?”

After a slight paused, she exclaimed, “NEVER!”

I was bothered by this because it is not true. To counter this former student, I pose another question. Read the list contained below, and determine what each item has in common:

• Barth Syndrome
• Cori’s Disease
• Chanarin-Dorfman Syndrome
• Pompe Disease
• Arganise Deficiency
• Anderson’s (Not to be confused with your professor!) Disease
• 3-methylglutaconic Acidura

THEY ARE ALL METABOLIC DISEASES. All of which connect to some pathway covered in class. Of course, the material covered in CHEM 240 is important!

How can you  assist with the care of an ill patient suffering form a metabolic disease if you do not understand  the pathology of their condition? The answer is simple, you can’t, and you shouldn’t.

Don’t believe me? Check this website:

http://www.noah-health.org/en/genetic/conditions/metabolic.html

It contains a database of a metabolic diseases. There are countless disorders. I found it very interesting. Enjoy!

Happy Spring Break!

Get your popcorn and rent Pollock!

 

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION:  POLLOCK

 

Several of us in Barbara DiOrio’s Thursday night class have recently studied the artist Jackson Pollock, and watched the beginning of the 2000 film biography Pollock, starring Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden, who plays his wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner. Some of you in the Women Artists class are doing your research papers on Lee Krasner, so this movie might be of some interest to you.

 

Above, you will see both the film trailer for the movie Pollock as well as an excerpt from Jackson Pollock 51, insightful 1950s footage of Pollock himself in the act of painting.  

 

I would hope that other art history students besides our class are interested in this film as well. Jackson Pollock is one of those names you can’t get away from in the art world, because he practically defines the abstract expressionist movement, one of the major art movements of the 20^th century. In this film, we see him in all of his rough, alcoholic, paint-dripping glory, and we also get to know his wife Lee, an artist in her own right who sacrificed much of her career to encourage the talent she recognized in her husband.

 

Biographies of artists, in literature or film, are great ways of enhancing your artistic experience. I think you will find that, like me, you become more interested in pieces of art when you know something about their creators. And even if you are not a fan of Jackson Pollock, I encourage you to see this film for the sake of enjoying a terrific drama.

-Courtney Hebert, Fine Arts Content Tutor

Tips on Reading/Studying for Prof. Keller’s class!

Reading and Studying for Art History with Professor Keller

 

by Courtney Hebert

 

 

            Having to read several pages or chapters from any text book can be daunting. At least in Art History text books, you get to look at pictures, and the pictures are the most important thing!

 

            First of all, the most important things for you to study for a test in this class are your own notes from class!

 

That being said…

 

If you are in Art History I or II, you are using Gardner’s Art through the Ages. This book is your best friend. It comes with a CD in the back cover that has all of the images from the book for you to view on a computer, as well as home quizzes and many supplemental learning tools that might help you. At the very least, you should be using it to flip through the images that you will be tested on.

 

In the book and on the CD, the captions beneath each image contain much of the information you may be tested on about each work of art. You will find the artist’s name (if it’s known), the title of the piece (if there is one), the location, the medium, the time period, and more. These are the basic facts you need to know about any piece of art, all conveniently listed for you right beneath the picture. For Professor Keller’s class, you are not usually required to know the specific size of the work. You also are not required to know the specific year either, but you do need to know either the century or time period in which the work of art was created.

 

Another thing you want to keep an eye out for in the text is italicized or bold print vocabulary words. These words are often very commonly used artistic terms that you will need to know to understand lectures and any future art classes. They could also be on your test.

 

Reading your text book is important, because part of your grade is class participation. If you are in class and Professor Keller wants to know your thoughts on a visual image or on what she is saying, you ought to have some intelligent, well-informed response. This is accomplished by completing your assigned reading before class. Reading the text book is also useful in writing insightful essays for your tests.

 

            Some Art History texts are more complex than others, so much so that a person who is unfamiliar with the art world might be totally confused. In the upper-level art history classes, often the text books are not quite as comprehensive as Gardner’s. The chapters may seem long and wordy. This is actually all the more reason to have your assignment read before each class, so you can ask about any parts of the reading that were not clear to you. There will also be some things covered in the text book that are not discussed in class, which likely means you will not be tested on them. If you do not read your text until the night before a test, you will find yourself struggling to recall if unfamiliar concepts were actually covered in class or not.

 

            Some of the pictures in text books may be small or black & white, making them more difficult to view. I recommend that you search the web for clearer images of the paintings you discuss in class, for your own use in quizzing yourself at home.

Visual Analysis Illustrations for Art History Papers: PART 1 – Introduction

By Courtney Hebert

Well Baby Clinic

 

Many students are concerned about the Visual Analysis illustrations for their Art History papers, the part where you actually have to draw the images yourself in order to analyze them. There are 5 different types of illustrations you may be asked to do, though some of you will only be asked to do 3 or 4, so be sure that you are clear which types are part of your assignment. Otherwise, you may create unnecessary work for yourself, or end up doing the wrong type! Be sure to check with your professor if you are not sure.

 

***Note that this article is only instructing you about the illustrations. You will also have to write about what these illustrations within your paper.

 

Below are examples of the 5 different types of Visual Analysis illustrations. There are many more examples you can view here in the CAE if you would like to come in and look at our books of past art history papers.

 

These drawings do not have to be a specific size. If you like, you may take up a complete page per illustration, or you can fit them all on one sheet together. It will not be counted (like written pages) as part of your paper length.

 

THESE ALL MUST BE DONE BY HAND.

 

Above is the actual piece of art I am using in my examples (“Well Baby Clinic” by Alice Neel), so you can see what it really looks like, and what I did with it for each illustration.